>> According to a Japanese Zaku site, four R2s were built by engineers
led by
>> Major Elliot Rem, three were dispatched to Granada and one was kept
for
>> further experimental modifications and designated R3. Apparently the
R3
>> borrows heavily from the MS-11 ActoZaku parts bin but is considered a

>> prototype Gelgoog. The R3 was also known as 'Zaku III' at the time.
>
> The "MS-11" they're talking about here is the Gelgoog, under its
original
>model number. When the Gundam appeared, the Gelgoog project was
restarted
>under a new model number (MS-14) and the intervening numbers were freed
up
>for less delayed projects. In the meantime, the MS-11 generator was
spliced
>into the original R-2 test unit, the R-2P. ...
>
>-- Mark

As I read more about the R2P,R2,R2S,R3,R3S,and the MS-11 ActoZaku the
MS-11=MS-14 business seemed to be more and more like the 'chiken and
egg' situation but I have a theory...

If the references mean MS-14 Gelgoog then they should say MS-14 instead
of an ambiguous MS-11...

According to the Zaku site, as Mark has noted the R2P uses the
generators from the still-in-development Gelgoog. Only one R2P was built
and was supposedly only able to use a very low power beam weapon and
thus the use of beam weapons were shelved.

Four R2s were built and the site states that it uses a modified MS-11
generator and it also does not use a beam weapon.

The R2S and the R3, on the other hand were developed to use beam
weapons and were developed by competing teams. The R2S team used an
external energy pack to provide power for the beam weapons, while Elliot
Rem, the man responsible for the R2, chose a different method. As stated
in my earlier post the R3 is built from one of the four R2s and uses
mostly parts from the MS-11.

To make the matter interesting both the MS-14 Gelgoog and the MS-11
ActoZaku uses the beam rifle and beam sabre, though the MS-15 Gyan is
generally considered the Gelgoog's competitor in the beam weapon MS
market. They only made one Gyan but both the ActoZaku and the Gelgoog
made it into 'mass' production.

About 20 MS-11 ActoZakus were rumoured to have been developed during the
closing stages of the OYW and deployed presumeably in Granada. In a
game book titled 'The Last Red Comet" , Twanning ,one of Kishiria's men,
reportedly piloted one by remote control although no other reference
suggest such feature exists.

If all early references to MS-11 was interpreted as being MS-14, it
seems odd that what is supposedly the prototype Gelgoog(R3), borrowed
parts heavily from the already far developed Gelgoog?. In that case the
R3 was just a Gelgoog with Zaku based externals, in which case why build
a R3 instead of a MS-14P when there is another independent group of
engineers working on the Gelgoog elsewhere? Didn't these people bother
to build a body for their new MS until the final stages ?

Also the fact that the R2P and the R2 , using supposedly Gelgoog
technology , not being able to effectively use beam weapons does not sit
too well with me either.

If the R3 is a true Gelgoog prototype then the Gelgoog should be a R3
with a new body and not the other way round. The R3 should be at the top
of the Gelgoog lineage and not an offshoot near the bottom.

Whatever the MS-11 was at the time R2P and R2 were being developed, it
certainly wasn't the MS-14 Gelgoog. So what is going on?

I suggest that the MS-14 Gelgoog is an offshoot of the development of
MS-11 ActoZaku and that at one point they were the one and the same
project, hence the resulting confusion. R2P and R2 prematurely sourced
parts from the MS-11 project and it wasn't until the R3 was being
developed that the use of beam weapons were being made possible with the
MS-11. The success of the R3 resulted in the MS-14 line. It makes sense
to me that the MS-14 Gelgoog is the end result of Elliot Rem combining
the new MS-11 technology with the old MS-06. While others continued the
original MS-11 project resulting in the ActoZaku. Combining new
technology with the already existing tried and true technology meant
that the MS-14 Gelgoog was completed much earlier (and also perhaps due
to pressure from the Gyan competition) than the completely new MS-11
ActoZaku albeit it did not benefit from the Zeon version of magnet
coating technology of the ActoZaku.